The Problems with Pie
by LadyArrin
Summary: All Castiel really wanted was to bake a pie; who knew how much trouble would result? /continuation per so many requests
1. Chapter 1

Sam went over to his brother's house earlier than he had planned. His day, in fact, had comprised of studying for the California bar and a phone call to his brother to wish him a happy birthday. Nope. Castiel had called and begged him for help without saying what it was for, crying out of sheer distress. It was Dean's birthday and the last thing his brother needed was to come home to a crying partner. It seemed he did a lot of patching things up these days. Castiel and his brother had been...arguing. Dean had been crashing on his couch a few nights a week. Sam wasn't sure what they argued about and he found he didn't care; all he wanted was for them to stop. They had been the perfect pair for so long but every time he came over it was tense to the point of hostile, less and less dishes and glasses because they weren't being replaced after they were destroyed against the walls of their home.

The fact that his brother had decided to settle down, move in...well, that was asking a lot out of Dean. His brother had a temper but the other man always managed to settle him down before any damage was done. They were meant for each other, really. Dean was Fire; all passion and temper. Castiel was Water; always there with a soothing influence over the the flames that could be endless. Dean was Earth, stubborn and immovable. Castiel was air, always the one to lift him to new heights and off the ground where Dean cast himself.

His brother had changed for the better when Castiel stuck around. He'd gotten the story from Dean once when they were drinking, and he'd only heard it once.

–

Dean was with an old army buddy at a club, the last place he had ever wanted to be at. They'd just returned for a six-week leave and his friend wanted to find a piece of ass to hang around with. That was fine, he just wanted somebody along. As for why...Dean was likely to leave once his friend found the girl so it was less of an issue trying to get the car back. He'd managed to segregate himself in the quietest corner with a beer, sitting at a round table and looking out at the moving people.

He saw the man staggering up the stairs, hands outstretched and pleading as he fought off a girl quite a few years younger than he was. "Look, m'am...please, I said I don't want to dance." The man was in a button-down shirt (sleeves rolled to the elbow), jeans and nice shoes. "Really..."

"Why not?" The scantily-clad girl was following him, hanging on him. "C'mon, tell me. Just come dance with me!" The girl was drunk and Dean would happily have ignored them both but he suddenly gotten dragged into the middle of it.

"I'm gay!" The dark-haired man practically blurted it out, clapping hands over his mouth as he said it. The girl, clearly, didn't believe him.

"Where's your boyfriend then?" Dean's attention got drawn to the finger being pointed at his chest.

"That's him. Right there." The blue-eyed stranger escaped the clutches of the female and threw his arms around Dean's neck, pleading frantically. "Just go with it! Please! I'll do anything! Get me away from her!"

What the hell. Why not? He had nothing to lose and he was bored, so, really, fucking around with barely-not-a-teenager's head seemed like a fun thing to do. Dean slung an arm around the man's hips, holding him close as he caught the man in a sudden kiss that clearly took him as off-guard as the girl, who then slunk away. The soldier watched her go with a grin. Who was this man?

Castiel found himself wondering as he was brought in for a kiss. He had to lean in to be heard above the music.

"Look, thank you for that. I...uh, I appreciate you covering for me but that was rather unnecessary." d

"C'mon. Let's get out of here." Dean grabbed the man's wrist and practically dragged him out of the club, leaving the pulsing interior for the smooth cold of the winter night. Dean led the way to his car where he got his leather jacket from the seat and shrugged it on over his t-shirt, picking up a pack of smokes from his pocket and offering one out to the other man (which he refused) , rubbing his arms briskly over his exposed forearms where his sleeves were rolled.

"I really appreciate that. She was just..." Castiel shrugged his shoulders. "Not my type." Wrong gender, for starters. "I'm Castiel, by the way." Dean took a long pull from his cigarette before leaning against the car. He wasn't a bad looking man and you could say that he was...progressive, when it came to partners. He usually drifted towards women and he didn't make his habits known, but if a pretty man happened to catch his eye, so be it. And this Castiel _was_ pretty. They were approximately the same height but where Dean's eyes were multi-faceted green, Castiel's were a sharp and piercing blue. Dean's face was clean but Castiel's held more than a hint of shadow.

Castiel was shivering. Dean rolled his eyes and shrugged out of his jacket as quickly as he put it on, offering it to the owner of the blue eyes who took it with a very grateful "Thank you, again."

"I totally get it, man. Don't stress it. Figured we could both get out of there for a bit." His buddy had no doubt found his woman-du-jour and had already left. "Look, we can still salvage the night if you want. The only catch is I don't have an apartment."

Castiel arched an eyebrow. "That's a little presumptuous don't you think?" Dean shook his head.

"Nah, I didn't mean it like that." Oh yes he had. "Look, I'm back here for six weeks before I ship off to the sandbox again. I move around a lot." Good. The connection clicked in the scruffy face with a sharp widening of eyes.

"Oh..." He breathed. "You're a soldier." That explained a lot. The lack of hair, the completely clean-cut appearance and the beige t-shirt, the tattoo on his forearm. "No, it's fine. Look, we can buy a bottle and hang out at my place for a while. It's fine." Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew it was a bad idea but he didn't really care. "I just...I uh, came here with my brother, Gabe. I lost him. He won't really...care." He was likely already gone.

"I got a ride, so this whole thing works out perfectly."

–

Castiel was panicking. The kitchen of his house, his house with Dean, was a mess. There was flour everywhere (including all over him), eggshells all over the floor. There were empty egg cartons and dirty bowls on every available surface. All around him was the remnants of his birthday surprise for Dean. He was supposed to be baking a pie. His mother had sent him an email with a very strict how-to recipe and everything but Castiel was just not a baker. Or anything, really. He was a history professor at a local university who was hopeless in the kitchen, surrounded by 5 unmitigated disasters. Each and every one was black on the top and one of them it had simply fractured into a hundred tiny pieces so it was covered in a fine coating of black dust. He had called Sam crying because there wasn't else he could do; his marriage was failing and Dean was always angry with him, always short. The house was never perfect and every adoption they had tried to do was always taken away from them. They had stopped trying years ago. It was stupid, he knew, to attach the hope of his relationship onto a pie. He was desperate and hoping that with one, perfect pie for a pie-loving husband, they would be alright. It was going to be alright.

–

Castiel turned the key to his apartment and let them in, switching on the lights in his kitchen as he closed and locked the door behind them. They had stopped to pick up a bottle of whiskey before pulling into the building. His flat was not inherently nice; a lot of big open spaces on brick-covered walls, small, high windows. But somehow he had made the space work. The furniture was a deep red leather in contrast to the sharp chrome of his kitchen, he had taken down the walls and turned it into a studio. In the corner, behind some sort of a screen, was assumably the bed. There were lots of warm colored paintings on the walls. On the single wall that was plaster there was a TV and there was a table not too far from the kitchen that looked to be hardwood. The floors, however, were light (was that bamboo?) and it helped give the space a sense of self. One of the other walls was covered in bookshelves and it looked like the man had every book that had been written. Ever. The bathroom was hidden near the front door in the only closed room in the place.

"This is a nice place." As an understatement. Castiel shrugged.

"It's not really mine. I mean, everything in it is mine, but I'm sort of keeping it for my brother. He travels a lot and it's nice to have an apartment he doesn't need to worry about. All his other ones don't have anybody in them." The man with the deep, smooth voice actually blushed. "But it's irrelevant."

Dean was already in one of the couches, in Castiel's spot, cracking the bottle of whiskey open. The owner of the apartment huffed slightly as he sat himself in the armchair next to the man.

"My name is Castiel Novak." He had introduced himself before but had never gotten a name back; a name which he would greatly appreciate having.

"Dean. Dean Winchester."

"Well, Dean, it's good to finally know that. After I bring you home." The flush on his cheeks deepened as he desperately reached for the remote, putting on the first thing that came to mind. Some movie about a super-hero, but the volume was low. Once Dean started drinking he started to interrogate Castiel, asking him about everything he did and everything he was, firing of five to ten questions at a time.

"I have two older brothers, Michael and Gabriel, one who's a doctor and the other is in some sort of business. I'm getting my masters in history. My thesis is on one of the generals of the Civil War. No, I don't really have a lot of friends. I uh, I study a lot. And I'm not very sociable. Nope, I can't cook for the life of me. It doesn't exactly run in the family, my brothers can't either." And so it went, everything from his favorite movies to his favorite music to what he did when he wasn't studying, how he was dating. If he was dating, to which he had a bashful reply.

"Oh um...no, not really. I wasn't kidding when I said I was gay." His cheeks were already on fire from the whiskey so he was glad that the blush didn't show. What this man must think of him.

Dean, for his part, was entirely enthralled. Something about this man intrigued him. He wanted to know every single thing about him. He wanted to claim this man in something that was more than carnal. There wasn't anything or any words to explain it. He wanted Castiel to be his. And so that was his ending point for the six weeks he was here. He would find a way to conquer this man and that would be the end of it. He wasn't even listening anymore. He was watching how the man would use his hands when he got excited about things, like his research and his work, and how his head would droop when his family was brought up and mentioned. Castiel was an honest-to-God, good person. And Dean had to have him.

Castiel was taken by surprise when Dean suddenly got to his feet and swooped Castiel into his arms. "What...I don't understand..." Blue eyes meet the green, that impossible landscape of color that reminded him of a kaleidoscope, and he knew he was a goner. Dean kissed him for the second time and that was it. Arms threaded around the soldier's neck as he another kiss was stolen from him. It didn't take long for them to end up on the bed, Castiel pressed down into the mattress with no shirt on as Dean Winchester's lips ravaged his throat. He was on fire. Their bodies fit together with no seams and every kiss from Dean set him on flaming all the more.

Somehow Dean had managed to get off their jeans, get out of their boxers, and flip Castiel onto all-fours. The dark-haired man's arm flew out to a table and reached desperately into a drawer and pressed a small bottle into Winchester's hands.

Castiel cried out as he was taken from behind, his head back and his back sharply curved as Dean's fingers gripped first at his hips and then, once they had established a rhythm, over the entirety of the man beneath him.

Dean's mind was clouded with whiskey and lust and this felt so absolutely _right_ he knew that this man would be the end of him. The way he was moving under Dean's body, so responsive to fingers playing across his skin and the rock hard of his erection it was like he was playing an instrument. Every place and every combinations had him playing Castiel until he couldn't deal with anymore. He felt the man clench and spasm beneath him, falling to his elbows as he came hot with a cry over Dean's hand.

There was no way that Dean could possibly outlast him and after he been utterly drained he collapsed onto the mattress and gathered Castiel into his arms where the man promptly passed out, leaving Dean to pet at his hair and stare at the ceiling.

Six weeks found them inseparable and yet, they decided against all odds, to remain a full-fledged couple. The eventual repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell made it possible for Dean to carry Castiel's picture in his wallet and in his gear everywhere he went. For his part, it meant that Dean had somebody to go home to. Somebody other than his brother. He had a family.

–

Sam shook his head as he crunched up the drive. Cas and Dean had been through so many deployments and so much crap over the years it almost wasn't fair. As he passed through the door Sam realized why this was heartbreaking. He found his brother-in-law crying in the middle of the kitchen floor wearing an apron and oven mitts, flour smudged across his face and through his hair, scattered across the floor and the cabinets and even...good God, was that on the ceiling? The look of incredulity on his face only made the man on the floor cry even harder.

"Oh dear."

He managed to get Cas up and brushed off, drying his tears with a dishtowel. The man was filthy. There was flour in his hair and all over his clothes. Sam drew him into a hug which started off another sobbing wail.

"I just wanted to make a pie for Dean!" He was crying into Sam's shoulder and it was all so stupid, so petty. But he had just wanted this one thing. He so oblivious that he didn't even notice Dean texting his brother to get his ass home ASAP.

"C'mon, Cas. Be a good host and get me a beer."

–

Dean received the text and groaned. He just wanted a quiet day with no theatrics from his brother or his husband. That was it. But...nope. That was clearly not what God had in mind for him today. He took the Impala and drove home at a reasonable pace, cutting the driveway in the house of his pretty little colonial on the end of a quiet cul-de-sac. They had picked the house for the children they never got.

He opened the door and saw his husband, who frankly looked like shit, and the destruction of his kitchen. "What the fuck..." Castiel burst into tears again and Sam, appearing from nowhere, smacked him upside the head.

"Don't be a dick for once in your life! Look before you say something!"

And, for once, he listened to his brother. Green eyes took in the state of his kitchen, the pies that had been destroyed, and back to his crying husband, and it all clicked. Castiel, his husband who didn't cook (who couldn't cook), had tried multiple times to bake him a pie for his birthday. His heart caved and he walked over, drawing Castiel up into his arms for a hug and the combination of confusion and gratitude on his husband's face made him want to hit himself. Hard. He'd been such an _ass_ for so long. Castiel tried as hard as he could to make Dean happy, to do everything for him. He did everything around the house. He made Dean his favorite drink every day when he walked in the door. He would schedule exams for students around his husband's schedule. He'd gotten Dean football tickets for Christmas and Dean hadn't even taken him. He'd promised, holding Castiel up on that altar, that he would love the man for better or worse. When the worse showed up, when they'd received the phone call after redoing the nursery five, six, then seven times...when their child was taken away before they'd had a chance to love them, he'd withdrawn. He'd blamed everything but himself and Castiel had killed himself to try and make it better.

And he'd just made his cherished Cazzy, his husband who he came home to every night, the husband who cuddled up on his chest every night even if they'd had a fight, his loving, forgiving, **perfect** husband suffer his undeserved wrath.

"It's okay, baby. I'm gonna go in there and eat every single of those pies because _you_ made them. For me. And you didn't burn the house down." He knew he wasn't being fair to his partner. The childlessness was neither of their faults despite the chasm it had created in their relationship. Castiel wanted a child as much as he did and it wasn't anything they could to make the stars line up right. They only had each other and Dean had been treating his husband like shit.

"I'm so sorry, baby." Neither of the men noticed Sam slipping out of the house, his work for the day done. "I'm so sorry for everything. I've been such an ass." He cradled Castiel in his arms and rested his cheek against the flour-streaked black hair. "I'll get better. I'll treat you better. I promise."

All his partner had wanted to do was make him happy; enough that he would wreck himself trying to do something as simple as bake his husband's favorite dessert for his birthday despite the fact that it was (for Castiel) an insurmountable task.

"I love you, baby. I'll make up for everything I've done to you, you'll see."


	2. Chapter 2

It had been several weeks since the issue with the pie and things had somewhat gone back to normal. Dean was being a considerably better person both in the way he was changing his habits and the way he spoke to Castiel. He'd come home on time and bring dinner and the pair would cuddle up on the couch and watch movies with a bottle of wine. It was as close to perfect as they could get. Cas, for his part, never felt as happy as he did when he was against his husband's side with his head head on Dean's shoulder, a hand on his chest and being held like he was loved. They had decided to put in one last request through social services to adopt a child. The pair didn't have high hopes but they weren't quite ready to give up yet.

Cas had gotten home early from teaching at the university figuring he could grade papers just as easily on his couch as he could at his desk and was thumbing through the mail before something caught his eye. A very official seal. _The official seal._ He didn't even reach for the letter opener; he just tore it open with trembling hands as he read the letter. The glass of lemonade he was holding dropped to the floor and shattered with the tinkling sound that so often accompanied such an accident. It felt like his heart was pounding in his ears and his hands were shaking and _Oh God_ _could this really be true?_ Castiel's knuckles were white as they gripped the counter, his feet were struggling to hold up his weight, he could feel his heart pounding in his ears and his temples and felt like he was going to faint or pass out and he wanted to scream and shout and show this letter to everybody.

The professor's world stabilized; his heart rate dropped and the room stopped spinning but that sense of soaring joy in his soul remained as he ran barefoot over to the phone, frantically punching in Dean's desk number, waiting breathlessly as it rang and rang and rang.

–

Dean was on his way back to his office when the phone on his desk rang, the shrill sound breaking through the mid-afternoon fog of his life. He was struggling to keep himself awake and he sank exhausted into the chair at his desk, not thrilled from more orders from the higher-ups. The dark leather chair settled under his weight as his feet pulled him closer to the wood of the desk, hoping to keep the annoyance out of his voice as he answered the phone with a brusque "Winchester." His face turned from bored to incredulous as any lingering tiredness vanished with the way his heart soared and up and up and didn't seem like it would ever stop. "Cas...Cas, baby, tell me this isn't a joke."

He didn't even hang up the phone before the entire precinct before the whooping and laughter that was coming from his usually-quiet corner office; the precinct staring as it didn't stop. There were joyous tears running down his face as the laughter turned into body-wrenching sobs. There was a steady beeping from the telephone that was dangling off the side of his desk, utterly forgotten in it's disconnection. He needed to be home; home with his husband as they celebrated. There was a crowd of uniformed officers gathering outside his office with very confused looks on their faces. Dean's Captain was coming down the hall with a rather grumpy look on his face.

"WINCHESTER! What the hell is going on?"

Dean grabbed his jacket and hung up the phone, wiping away his tears but unable to wipe away the joy on his face as he looked out over the rest of the police department. "I'm a dad. I'm gonna be a dad." These men and women were his friends, his family. They had been there through every gain and every loss, every heart-break and every joy of his life since and Castiel had settled here in Stanford to be closer to Sam and Jess. The resounding cheer that came up from the officers was enough to lift his heart even higher than it had been before (he hadn't known it was this possible to be happy). There were hands pounding him on the back and shoving him to the door as he repeated his mantra over and over and over again. His voice was a whisper and lost admit the congratulatory celebration from his comrades. "I'm gonna be a dad."

–

He wasn't even sure how he'd gotten home (probably speeding at a reckless pace but he was an officer of the law, getting pulled over wasn't an issue for him since everybody who worked this area knew the Impala) but he burst through the door, calling for his husband. "CAS! CAZZY!" There was a solid impact against his chest and his arms came down to wrap around and press the man close to his chest. His voice dropped to a whisper. "We did it, Cas. We did it. We're gonna be parents. We did it."

They stood like that forever, with Castiel crying into Dean's chest as Dean held him close, petting heavily through his hair and clinging to him. They were clinging to each other; happiness, fear, anxiety, and utter joy all rolled into one little ball. They were going to be parents and their little boy would be arriving in two weeks.

–

Those two weeks were insanity. Redoing the room that neither of them had been able to step into for years. Sam was a huge help with repainting and moving furniture as Castiel taught himself some very, very basic things to cook, enough to get by at the very least. They'd decided to have people over later in the night after the baby had arrived to give them time to settle down and let it sink in. The nursery ended up being done in pastel shades of blue with a rocker set up in the corner next to the crib. Castiel had taken two months worth of paternity leave (not included in the two months break over Christmas), giving him plenty of time with the kid. Everything was ready and now they were waiting anxiously for the car to come and pull into the driveway. They were more than ready; Dean had opted for casual with a Stanford PD t-shirt and jeans while Castiel had on a button-down along with his own denim. The doorbell rang and Dean opened it with a smile that crashed off his face. His husband was better at controlling his expression.

Instead of a baby in a carrier there were two people in front of them; a tall, lanky man with a folder and a girl. A small, pasty, scrawny teenage girl with dark red hair and facial piercings, and a black tank top with what was likely a band and a pink-and-black plaid miniskirt. Her eyes were focused on the ground as she hugged a black plastic trash-bag to her chest, worrying over the piercings. There were dark circles under her eyes, scars across her forearm that were only partially hidden by a cascade of bracelets. What looked to be a tattoo (_how could she have a tattoo? She was too young to have a tattoo!_) coming to wrap around her shoulder; Fenris, the wolf who ate the world. Her feet were tucked into worn black sneakers that were falling apart on her feet. The girl hid behind the curtain of hair and refused to make eye contact; Castiel was the one who recovered first. This girl was bright and she was lonely, she clearly needed them to be present and there for her. She looked as though a mere negative thought would simply push her over and she would never get up again.

"Please, come in. Don't stand out there in the heat. How was the drive?"

Dean stepped numbly back and turned to the wall, struggling to compose himself. This was not their child. Their child was a baby boy, two months old. This...this was practically an adult. He tuned back in to hear how beautifully his cherished husband was handling this.

"So what's your name?"

The social worked looked uncomfortable. "You can call me Anthony. This is Anna." Castiel favored her with a warm smile.

"Hi, Anna. Welcome home." Well shit. This wasn't what was supposed to be happened. He mentally ran over every piece of information he had been given as he watched Dean sink numbly to the couch; he also saw the girl's shoulders droop, the way her head hung and she clutched her possessions to her chest. "We'll have to redo your room, we weren't exactly...expecting a girl." Her head drooped even farther and her shoulders sank and it just about broke his heart. This girl was barely more than a child and she needed parents; he would be that parent. He would be her protector. He would give her the home she needed and the love she deserved. He had known her for about two minutes and he already felt fiercely protective, rushing through his sentences. "It's okay. We'll do it just about however you want. I have plenty of time off of work and we can do it together." The child was silent, nodding her agreement. "Anthony, Dean and I would love to speak to you in the kitchen, please." It was a command and not a request. "Anna, feel free to sit down wherever you want." Dean got up and paced towards the kitchen, still silent and blank and followed by the social worker. Fuck.

Cas watched how she curled herself into the corner of the couch, trying to make herself as small as she possibly could and he went to kneel down in front of her. "No matter what happened, Anna, you have a home with me."

She finally looked up and he was caught in green, almost hazel eyes that reminded hims sharply of Dean. "Promise? Promise you won't send me away like everybody else?" There was desperation in her voice and her fingers were white as she held onto the trash bag.

"I promise, Anna...and I never break a promise." Cas reached out to put a hand on the top of her head, standing up and giving her a kiss on the forehead. "You're my kid, right? We'll see about getting you enrolled in school. Make yourself comfortable. I'm gonna have a chat with your case worker and we'll see about getting lunch, hm?" He followed his familiar path into the kitchen where Dean was already grilling said social worker.

–

"No, of course we won't take her." Dean's voice was hot and angry, filled with venom. "That's not the kid we were promised. I should have known, you're all liars and cheats. You've cheated us out of seven kids before this." He turned slightly as Cas's hand came down on his shoulder briefly before he busied himself in the fridge.

"Don't be stupid, Dean. We're not giving her up." He was trying to figure out what would make a good lunch for a skinny teenager. Dean had made a macaroni and cheese that he could heat up. That would work. He went to turn on the oven (about the extent of his cooking skills) and turned to face them. "We've waited for years for a kid and she's waited years for a family. Say what you want, Dean, but _I'm_ _not_ giving her up." The threat was implied. If Dean didn't want the girl, it would cause they're barely functioning, barely recovering marriage to shatter. Castiel wanted a child more than anything in the world and if Dean wanted to throw this one away because she wasn't what he expected...well, he hadn't thought his husband could be that cruel of a human being.

The social worker looked relieved. "That settles it, then. I'll check in with you in three weeks to see how she's adjusting. Here's her file; you're going to need it." The speed with which he left made Dean suspicious enough to read through the simply enormous file, a stack of paper that seemed big enough to be an official textbook which he promptly flung across the counter with a hiss.

"She's nothing but a trouble maker, Cas! I arrest kids like her all the fucking time!" It wasn't the girl's fault she had ended up like this, he knew that, but he could help himself from allowing his emotions to get the better of him and snap at his husband, all those bad habits rushing back in a furious haze. "Drugs, booze. Car theft? Are you fucking kidding me?" His voice was rising. He couldn't stop it. "I will not have this kid in my house! How do we know she won't steal everything?"

Castiel fixed the police officer with a steady, unflinching look. "You were that way once, Dean. As I recall you did everything you could just to survive. How do you know she's not just doing the same thing?" There was no arguing with Castiel when he got all professor.

"I'm going for a drive." Dean stormed out of the house and the roar of the Impala filled the neighborhood as he left. Castiel came out of the kitchen to see Anna staring longingly and almost forlornly out the window.

"He'll be okay, you know." Cas came to stand behind the couch while noting she hadn't put down her belongings yet. "We've had a lot of disappointments before. I guess this was just...a mixup. A good mixup, as far as I'm concerned." The man behind the couch sent her a smile kind enough to make her want to cry; his next words actually did. "I always wanted a daughter, anyway."

–

Castiel had given her time to pull herself together and put the leftovers in the oven, setting two places at the table with placemats, cutlery, glasses of ginger ale and plates and sat down with a rather bewildered look on his face. "I'm honestly not sure what to do now. I can't cook and I'm terrible with all this...domestic stuff. I guess we just wait? I have no idea when it's going to be finished, either." The look on his face softened her a bit as she sat down across the table from him, fingers fiddling with the edge of the fork.

The file said things other than her arrest record; Anna had been through plenty in her short life. If a person looked at her file what they would see is a kid whose mother had died in an accident when she was young and her father had rapidly lost custody in a spiral of addiction. Her elder sister and her husband had not offered to take the girl in and she had no other family, so she spent the rest of her adolescent life bouncing from foster home to foster home. There were notations of abuse that had never been proven and somewhere along the way she had picked up an affinity for alcohol and weed which had transformed into a habit of stealing 'nice' cars (also unproven) and racing them. She was talented and evasive, very good at lying; yet this man disarmed her. He made her feel cared about for the first time since her mother died. Something about him spoke volumes to her; almost like he would care if she died. He wouldn't hurt her...she could trust him. The confused and hopeless expression on his face as he stared at the oven was almost adorable.

"I can do it, if you don't mind. I had to cook at my last foster place. I had to do all the dishes and all the cleaning and not be around, really." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, nibbling on the edge of one of her lip rings. "So does the other guy cook?"

Castiel chuckled. "You mean Dean? Yeah, he does. He's really good at it, actually, although he pretends he isn't. He's a police offer here in town and I teach at the university." He ran a hand through his hair and put his elbows on the table. "To be honest, I'm not sure what he's doing." His shoulders slumped slightly and his face was worn, close to the edge of breaking for half a second. Anna took a seat at the edge of her chair, crossing her elbows on the table and looking at him.

"I don't wanna...I'm not...causing problems, am I?" There was a pit in the bottom of her stomach at the notion of it. Castiel seemed so nice, so smart and everything she'd wanted in a parent for so long that she didn't even care that they were gay. "I feel like he hates me. I haven't even done anything wrong yet. I feel like he's gonna kick me out." It came out in a heated rush, much to her surprise.

"Oh, honey, no." Cas reached over to take hold of her hand. "Dean takes some time to warm up. I can't tell you what he's been through; some stuff he won't even tell me. He was a soldier first, before we met. We met back when I was just a grad student, actually. He's done...a lot of deployments and a lot of work here. He's gruff. He's a man's man, if you know what I mean." He hesitated. "We...we tried for a kid before. More than a few times. More than was fair. Every time something went wrong. Sometimes we had the kid for a while before they got taken away. Sometimes the parents changed their minds before they gave them up. It's..." Heartbreaking. "Difficult. You fall in love with the concept of a baby, who is yours for all intensive purposes, and then it gets stolen away. You can't even file for kidnapping charges because it's all entirely legal. They just expect you to be alright with it. It's a hard thing to get over." It had caused fractures in his marriage that would never be repaired. "He'll come around when he realizes you aren't going anywhere. He's just as scared as you are, really. Even more scared than I am." He gave her a crooked smile. "But you're stuck with us, Anna, whether you like it or not, because I'm not going to let anybody steal my family away from me again."

There was a warmth deep in her chest as she squeezed his hand. Family. She'd never had a family before. "So what do I call you, then?"

"You can call me anything you want, but Dad works just fine for me."

–

By the time Dean came home from Sammy's he was considerably less angry and considerably happier to find his husband and...his...daughter?...passed out on the couch with the TV flickering in the room. Anna was curled up against Cas's chest and he didn't have the heart to wake them. Perhaps this would work out after all. The two of them had nowhere to be tomorrow so he simply covered them with a blanket and turned off the television. Maybe things would work out for once.

Or at least that's what he thought until he came down at 2 in the morning for a drink and found Castiel alone on the couch and the keys to the Impala gone and the car missing from the driveway.


End file.
